


it's my party and i'll brood if i want to

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alcohol, Flirting, Future Fic, M/M, Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-12-22 15:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>birdbitch asked: Jason/Damian; Damian never thought it would be so hard to have fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's my party and i'll brood if i want to

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Birdbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/gifts).



> I really actually like this ship and mourn not getting to write it as often as I would like to, so thank you for this prompt! I hope you are satisfied with this fic!

It’s not every day that the youngest Wayne son turns twenty-one and all of Gotham seems to turn up for the festivities.

The party takes place at one of the city’s biggest hotspots, some club that celebrities flock to in droves. It’s done in a style that’s slick and shiny to contrast the city outside. The place is supposed to look edgy, a good place for wealthy teenagers to come and pretend that they’re rebelling against society.

It’s the perfect place for the youngest son of an aging billionaire to throw the biggest party of the year for himself and over two hundred of his closest friends.

It’s an awful place for Damian Wayne. It’s his party and some of the people at the club are actually his friends, people that he talks to from school and fellow superheroes… However, Damian is not even  _close_ to having fun. And that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

He’s been sitting at a relatively quiet table off to the side of the bar since the party started, still sipping the first bottle of beer that Colin had pressed into his fingers once the dancing started and Damian had started feeling somewhat claustrophobic in the crush of drunken bodies. The beer is getting warm, but Damian doesn’t want to get another one. He doesn’t even want to flag a member of the staff down in order to get a glass of water so that he can wash the taste of subpar beer out of his mouth.

Moving means drawing attention to himself.

And drawing attention to himself means that Damian will have to spend time making idle chitchat with the spoiled children of politicians and CEOs before trying to find another table in the dark. He’s fine with sitting at his lonely little table in the shadows of the club and watching everyone else have a fantastic time at his birthday party.

And then two shot glasses and a dark bottle of something obviously alcoholic are set down on the table across from him and Damian scowls, thinking that it’s one of his few real friends come to try and get him drunk before the night is over.

Damian speaks without looking up. “I told you, Colin,” he says in a dry tone. “I  _like_  sitting back here. You don’t have to keep my company.”

Damian smells leather and boot polish and hears a rough-edged burst of laughter that sounds somehow familiar for all that it isn’t the way that Colin (or any of Damian’s friends) laugh when they’re laughing at him. Underneath the table, Damian reaches for a weapon that he isn’t supposed to have around civilians. When Damian swings his head up, his eyes lock on a pair of blue eyes that he hasn’t seen sans hood since the night he turned seventeen.

Jason Todd sits smiling at Damian from across the table as though they’re old friends and not technical siblings that haven’t spoken in close to five years. He’s a good ten years older than Damian, but it hardly shows on his narrow face. Aside from the small streak of white at the front of his brow, the other man doesn’t look as though he’s aged a day since the last time that they had seen each other before a misunderstanding had—

Damian forces his brain to focus on another thought and another memory that won’t be as painful or as embarrassing as remembering the first and only time that he and Jason had been something more than the brothers that Bruce would like them to be.

“What the hell are you doing here, Todd?” Damian spits the question out as though he’s angry, but his finger loosen their hold on the sharp blade that he had pulled from one of his pockets a few moments before. “Don’t you have anything better to do than crash my birthday party?” Damian scowls at Jason because that sort of thing is expected of him even in his adulthood and reaches for his lukewarm beer.

Jason’s smile stays fixed on his face and he reaches out to rap his knuckles along the neck of the bottle he had brought. “Of course not, kid,” he says in a smooth drawl. “What kind of older brother would I be if I didn’t come to get my favorite brother drunk on the big two-one?”

“You’re not really my brother,” Damian says on instinct because none of Robins are really siblings. Not by blood and certainly not by their respective origins. However, Damian quickly finds himself regretting his word choice.

Jason’s eyes darken with anger but before Damian can open his mouth to cobble together some kind of apology, the look is gone and Jason is back to smiling. “I’m sorry,” Jason says in a light tone, “I forgot that you still think that you’re better than me.” He crosses his arms over his chest and watches as Damian opens and closes his mouth as his attempts to come up with a retort fall flat.

Damian flattens both of his hands on the table in front of them in a sign of good faith and a promise that he won’t go for a weapon unless things get ugly. “I don’t,” he says as he stares at Jason’s mouth so that he won’t have to look at the older man’s eyes. “I don’t think I’m better than you are.” He sighs and hates himself for the vulnerability that blown out breath shows. “I haven’t thought that in a long time.”

“Oh really?” Jason rests his elbows on the table and leans forward until that he’s halfway over the top of the table and Damian’s beer is in danger of spilling everywhere. “Tell me more.” The older man is still smiling as he invades Damian’s space and underneath the table, the toes of his boots are knocking against Damian’s loafers in an accidental gesture that makes Damian feel antsy.

Damian rolls his eyes to mask the emotions he’s feeling. “Why are you really here?”

Jason laughs and then throws himself back into his seat hard enough to make the entire booth shake. “I told you, I’m here to get my favorite brother drunk.” Jason reaches for the bottle he had brought, wrapping one hand around it as he quickly unscrews the cap. The liquid that he pours into the glass is some dark liquid that smells strong even from where Damian is sitting.  When he pushes it towards Damian, the other man hesitates before picking it up and raising it to his lips.

Damian takes the shot without a wince for the burn in the back of his throat and then settles back to watch Jason take a shot of his own. He wants to ask what it is that he’s drinking or mention that he should probably eat something soon, but then Jason looks at him and Damian’s mouth dries up.

“You want another shot?”

Damian’s only answer is to slide his shot glass over the table and pray that the party ends before he gets drunk or close to it.

Jason fills the tiny glass up almost all the way to the top. It’s far more than what’s acceptable for a shot of strong alcohol, but when he nudges it in Damian’s direction, the other man takes it without complaint.

As Damian downs his second shot, Jason speaks up. “Happy birthday, Damian,” he says in a rumbling tone that makes Damian feel flushed and too warm under the collar of his button-up shirt. “Whenever you’re done trying to pretend that you’re having fun in this hellhole, let me know.” He reaches across the table and wipes at one corner of Damian’s mouth where a trickle of liquor had escaped. “I’ll take you somewhere that you’ll actually like.”

Damian thinks of all of the work that Colin and Milagro had put into planning his birthday party and almost shakes his head to say no to Jason. But then he remembers the last birthday that he had spent with Jason—

“After they make me cut the cake,” Damian finds himself saying as he pours some more liquor in his and Jason’s glasses and sets the bottle down too hard on the tabletop. “We can leave then.”


End file.
